Do you need special shoes for skateboarding?

If you’ve been a longtime skateboarder, chances are that you’ve had couple pairs of shoes being torn apart due to the intensive skating activities. That being said, many are switching to skate shoes to enhance their skateboarding experiences as well as keeping their feet protected. In this post, we’ll be discussing about the needs of skate shoes for skateboarders.

Do You Need Special Shoes For Skateboarding?

It has long been an intense debate on whether you need skate shoes for skateboarding. While many of us tend to wear our regular shoes while we’re skating since it’s more convenient and fashionable. Skateboard shoes do have their undeniable advantages:

Better protection of your feet

The first and most important benefit of wearing skate shoes is that they provide better protection over your feet, especially when you’re practicing tricks and techniques on your board. The better cushion and padding would relieve the pain and fatigue from intensive practicing.

More comfortable on the grip tape

The biggest reason why many people call skateboards are “shoe destroyers” is probably because of the rough grip tape. While it does a great job at providing stability and control over the board, the rough surfaces of your grip tape would likely to sand off the bottom of your shoes, making them flatten and less durable. On top of that, the grip tape is also responsible for tearing your shoes due to its grippy nature.

Better performance

Since skateboard shoes are designed with skateboarding in mind, they tend to perform much better in this regard. That being said, you’ll find yourself comfortably performing tricks and techniques on the boards without putting too much pressure on the feet.

Choosing Shoes For Skateboarding

The Best Skateboarding Shoes

Now you’ve known that skate shoes are the way to go, it’s time for you to learn a thing or two about choosing shoes for skateboarding.

The materials

For most of the time, you should never go for canvas shoes. Although they might come with cheap prices, they’re relatively fragile and aren’t well-built for skating-related activities. Plus, they’re usually not as comfortable compared to other materials.

Instead, you should go for suede or leather skate shoes as your ultimate solution. These materials are extremely durable and can last for a very long time despite your intensive practices. While they might be a little bit more expensive, especially with the leather ones, you’ll have reliable pairs of shoes to ride on your skateboard for a long time.

The pitch

While you might not hear this very often if you aren’t a shoe expert, the pitch is quite important for skate shoes. It is identified as the differences between the distances of the heel on the ground and the toes on the ground. The lower the pitch is the more flattened your shoe would be, and vice versa.

For activities such as skateboarding, having less pitch on your shoes would be a better choice as it allows for better board feel. While on the other hand, shoes with high pitch are always more suitable for running rather than skating.

The stitching

To keep the shoes from being torn up during heavy practicing sessions, most skate shoes come with double or even triple stitching compared to regular shoes. This allows your skate shoes to be more resilient to intensive skating activities. It ensures better stability and performance while you’re on your board. That being said, it’s always nice to go for products with multiple stitching.

The paddings

Now, this is probably the most controversial topic when it comes to skateboard shoes as people’s preferences are varied.

Vulcanized shoes

These shoes always come with thinner soles which provide more board feel, however, you might get hurt from jumping on these shoes. They’re also easy to break in due to their double baking construction method. In addition, vulcanized shoes are often less expensive compared to other types. Making them a great choice for skateboard beginners who’re more into cruising and simple tricks that involve less jumping.

Cup sole

While people can get comfortable with doing simple tricks and cruising on their board, some skateboarders prefer doing extreme techniques on their board. For those who love doing flying and spinning tricks on their skateboard, having cup sole shoes would be a better choice.

Since they’re made specifically for skateboarders, these shoes come with lots of padding and cushion to enhance your performances as well as protecting your feet from impacts.

However, these shoes tend to worth more due to their “skateboarder-oriented” nature and would take more time to break in.

Simple Tips To Protect Your Shoes

The best shoes for skateboarding

Depending on your preferences, you can choose the right skate shoes for your skating style. However, it’s also essential for you to learn about some simple tips to protect your shoes from being torn up. After all, skateboarding is a relatively intensive sport activity.

Glue your stitches

If you think that your shoes are getting loosen and the stitches are falling apart, you can get someone to fix it for you. Or you could do it on your own by gluing the stitches using your regular glue. However, you should only use if your shoes are considerably old since the glue can make them look less appealing.

Sand off your new grip tape

As mentioned, if you don’t think that you will do a lot of difficult techniques on your skateboard, which require stick grip tapes. It’s more reasonable to sand off your new grip tape a little bit, just to tone down the roughness a little bit and protect your shoes.

Go for non-abrasive DKL grip tape

If you want to protect your shoes from being worn down, it’s better to go for high-quality grip tape rather than the standard ones. Ideally, non-abrasive DKL grip tape would be great on your board if you have a little extra cash to spend.

Choose the right shoes for your skating styles

the strengths of Shark Wheels

Depending on your skating styles and the features that we’ve discussed, you can choose a suitable pair of skate shoes. Make sure you stay away from the poor-quality products as they won’t perform well and would likely to cause injuries on your feet.

And that’s our opinions on whether you need special shoes for skateboarding. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you in our future posts.